Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Sixty Democrats didn’t show up (may have been one Republican—not sure) to hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had been invited by the House Speaker to address the Congress of the U.S. Democrats made up this yahoo charge that it was political and Israel was having elections. What a crock. What isn’t political these days? Since when have we cared about anyone else’s elections? Do we even know when Canada or Mexico is having an election, and they are our next door neighbors!

Why would any leader of a modern, non-Islamic country under threat of extinction refuse such an invitation? Why would he insult Congress by saying, “Well, I’ve got to run this past your president to see if it’s OK.” Or, “Maybe I’d better wait until after the elections when Iran will be an even bigger threat.”

According to our 3 part system of government, the House is the most powerful part of Congress, and Congress is a bigger deal than the presidency. Yes, it’s become screwed up in the last 100 years, but that’s the way our Constitution is written. Article I, Section 1 starts with Congress, not the Executive or Judicial branch. Section 2 of Article I begins with the House, not the Senate. The idea of those crazy founders climbing out from under a Monarchy system was that the people, through their elected representatives from their communities, should have the biggest say in governing other Americans. They would originate the laws and apportion the taxes. The Senate was supposed to represent the interests of the individual states, so it was further removed from the people.

Through the leader of our most important branch of the government the people of the U.S. wanted to hear what the tiniest country in the middle east had to say about the threat to its existence. And wow. What a speech. It could make me cry (and almost did) to hear what a real leader sounds like.